✍️ 27 Mar 2025. This prawn mee stall is unreal.
I mean this is not the first time I am at Lai Xing Prawn Noodle at Marsiling Lane hawker centre - I even wrote a post about them in 2018 but it still amazes me today.
$3.50, grade A for hygiene. Can be nice meh?
Well, Lai Xing sports the longest queue at the hawker centre selling only one dish, prawn mee soup only, no dry option.
Just before 10am, lady boss called out to folks at the back of the queue, "没有了sorely."
Meaning "No more already. Sorry."
10:30am shutters down.
Fortunately, I was just in time to get my $3.50 serving.
The hubby and wife team is very patient and obliges customers' customisation requests. More mee, less bee hoon, a bit kway teow, no tau geh, etc - amazing what people can think of 😂 I requested for more taugeh which the lady boss repeated to her hubby to make sure he heard her 😂
Maybe I looked like a serious taugeh guy.
It's a big bowl for $3.50 in today's market. It has everything - noodles, bean sprouts, prawn, pork, fish cake, soup, fried shallot, lard, scallion, and the whole package tastes and smells great!
The soup is watery but it has that nostalgic savoury soy sauce and crustacean umami taste which ironically, the closest I can find now is at Ah Kwi in Larkin Bus Station in Johor Bahru.
It's how prawn mee soup tasted like when I was a child.
The yellow noodles were well blanched and rinsed, clean tasting, no residual slick or salt, smooth, soft spongy, wet with soup and its savoury umami flavour.
The two or three prawns were shelled and de-veined, fresh, meaty, crunchy, sweet, no IQF nonsense. (IQF means individual quick freeze.)
Ran out of shelled and de-veined prawns? Did they just throw in prawns with shell, legs, head and vein?
No!
Lady boss rushed to shell and de-vein some more 👍🙏
No compromise on quality even though it is just $3.50 a serving! 👏👏👏
The pork was fresh, the type which you can taste the pleasant subtle porcine sweetness, if you pay attention.
Even the fish cake, they don't anyhow - they use the Teochew type with bits of embedded aromatics for added flavour.
The shallots were freshly fried, so they greatly added their aroma and flavour to the bowl. I can smell the shallot dissolving into the soup as I was taking this photo 😲
I always give support to hawkers who go the extra mile for us, because nowadays it is so easy to just buy cheap stale factory fried shallot and serve it to customers (as this is being normalised in Singapore).
It takes nothing to lower one's standards.
背棄了理想 誰人都可以
No sambal, only cut chili and chili powder. Then I remember, Ah Kwi of JB also no sambal.
True hawker? ✅Checked - stall owners cook. Taste? ✅Checked - delicious nostalgic flavours. Value? ✅Checked - all real food, fresh, properly prepared and served at competitive price.
Cons - Located far for most people at the northern frontier of the country. Marsiling Lane is the north most hawker centre in Singapore. Near, if you live in JB 🤭 Everything sold out by 10am even on weekdays. Far nevermind, close early some more!
Stall name: Lai Xing Prawn Noodle 来興蝦面
Address: 20 Marsiling Lane, #01-05, Singapore 730020 (stall in Marsiling Market & Food Centre)
Nearest MRT: 15 minutes walk from Marsiling station
Hours: 8am - 10am (Sun off)
Written by Tony Boey on 27 Mar 2025
✍ 21 Mar 2018. Whenever I walked past the old Marsiling Market & Cooked Food Centre, I will see a long queue at Lai Xing Prawn Noodle. This morning, the queue was shorter, so I quickly joined in as I had long wanted to find out why Lai Xing is so popular with residents. It was near closing time 10:30am, and I was one of the last customers for the day.
For a start, at $3 (regular) and $3.50 (large) per serving, the prices are very people friendly.
I opted for the $3.50 serving. The lady boss asked me if I like more noodles or more liaw 加料 (ingredients). I opted for the latter.
The soup has a light watery body and a slight tea colour, but it is packed with sweet savoury flavours leaning slightly on the sweet side. The characteristic taste of crustacean savoury sweetness was distinctly present. This broth has an old school, Singapore style prawn soup taste but slightly sweeter. Lai Xing's prawn soup is a big winner to me.
In the bowl of noodle soup, there were prawns, pork belly slices, lean pork, fish cake and bean sprout. The prawns and pork were fresh, and we can taste the natural crustacean and porky sweetness.
There's options for house made fried shallot, pork lard crackling, and chili powder - all of which I wanted 😄
A bit of each of these make the soup more interesting, though I use them sparingly as too much would change the delicate taste profile of the soup which is the lead actress in Lai Xing's prawn mee.
The noodles and kway teow were generic and done a bit soft, but they were slurpy smooth and they taste good, wet with the savoury sweet soup.
Leftovers analysis: Nothing left really. I enjoyed Lai Xing's prawn mee to the last drop 😋
Lai Xing Prawn Noodle 来興蝦面 have been in Marsiling for nearly 30 years. Well loved by Marsiling and Woodlands residents, but still under the social media radar. Second generation owner Mr. 黄 had been helping his mum at the stall and took over seven years ago when she passed on. Camera shy, Mr. 黄 said a big part of his clientele consists of workers from Malaysia, hence there are Malaysian touches in his Singapore prawn noodle soup e.g. the chili powder. He used to make Penang style sambal chili for his "dry" prawn noodles but couldn't now due to lack of time and manpower.
Restaurant name: Lai Xing Prawn Noodle 来興蝦面
Address: Unit: #01-05, Blk 20/21 Marsiling Lane Market & Food Centre, Singapore
GPS: 1.443380,103.776917
Hours: 7:00am to 10:30am (Closed on Thursday)
Non Halal
Date visited: 21 Mar 2018
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everytime long queue, when there is no queue, means sold out.....
ReplyDeleteDuring his dad’s time got dry version one. Now his time only got soup version.
ReplyDeleteNow only got soup version. During his dad time got dry version.
ReplyDelete